History Main / TheOnlyBeliever

** ''Discworld/NightWatch'': In the revolution to overthrow Lord Winder as Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Reg Shoe is the only one who ''really'' thinks that a revolution will actually be a good thing or change anything. When he finally realizes just how little anyone cares about his ideals, the cynical, self-interested way that people are using the revolt for career advancement and such, and that the revolution is going to be a FullCircleRevolution, he breaks down sobbing. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome And then he stands up fighting.]]

* ''MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' has [[spoiler:Senator Armstrong]], with this heavily prominent in his MotiveRant about USA being a worse version of {{Eagleland}} while going NoHoldsBarredBeatdown on Raiden.

** ''Discworld/NightWatch'': In the revolution to overthrow Lord Winder as Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Reg Shoe is the only one who ''really'' thinks that a revolution will actually be a good thing or change anything. When he finally realizes just how little anyone cares about his ideals, the cynical, self-interested way that people are using the revolt for career advancement and such, and that the revolution is going to be a FullCircleRevolution, he breaks down sobbing.

Whether out of corruption, ambition, greed, or some other reason, all of the people who claim to be part of this group don't really care about the cause and mostly care about themselves... Except for one person, who truly and honestly believes in the cause, and is increasingly shocked or appalled when he sees that everyone else is a hypocrite.

* ''Film/TheHuntForTheRedOctober'': Dr. Petrov is the only officer in the "Red October" (other than ThePoliticalOfficer, and Ramius kills him soon after leaving shore) that doesn't believes the Soviet Union and Communism are a load of bull (all of the rest are loyal to Captain Ramius and had been tossed to the wolves by the Party in one way or another) and as a result he's left in the dark about the plan to turn the submarine over to the Americans and when the time comes to fake scuttling the ship so it "won't be captured", he's convinced to leave the ship with the rest of the crew while the other officers stay and he sincerely swears to Captain Ramius that he will try to make sure the Captain gets the Order of Lenin for his (alleged) HeroicSacrifice.

* In ''Disney/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'', Milo is the only character who thinks the expedition's goal is to find Atlantis to advance science, it turns out the entire expedition is OnlyInItForTheMoney. He does manage to make most of the team [[HeelFaceTurn switch sides]] once they find out that taking the treasure will mean destroying the Atlantean civilization, barring the main bad guy and his right-hand woman.

** Jon Snow joins the Night's Watch believing the hype about a thin line of defence against the supernatural horrors beyond {{The Wall|AroundTheWorld}}, but he's dismayed to find that over the centuries they've become an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores who don't believe in the Others and see their duty as preventing raids by the thoroughly human wildlings. The few other people who believe in the Watch having a higher calling are either unaffiliated (Melisandre), die off over the course of the story, or are sent away to raise support elsewhere. Jon's lack of support on this issue is {{Deconstructed}}: though he rises up to Lord Commander, his efforts to [[HangingTogether ally with the hated wildlings]] cause a huge amount of dissent and [[spoiler:he's assassinated by mutineers.]]
** Jaime Lannister starts off as a cynical BloodKnight [[KnightInSourArmor In Sour Armor]] widely reviled as a [[BodyguardBetrayal regicide]] and an {{oathbreaker}}. He was only accepted into the ranks of [[PraetorianGuard the Kingsguard]] to spite his father (as Kingsguard [[SuccessionCrisis cannot inherit titles]]), and nowadays he only sees it as a way to be close to his sister/lover the Queen. However, after a long arc of BreakTheHaughty and a positive knightly role model in Brienne of Tarth, Jaime starts to think about restoring his own honor and that of the Order he has come to command -- however, by this point his subordinates are all thugs and lackeys, a world away from the KnightInShiningArmor stories that inspired a young Jaime to join in the first place.

* In ''{{Series/MASH}}'', Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan are the only main characters who actually believe in the cause of TheKoreanWar. All the other main characters are draftees who share the writers' anti-war views.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', N is the only important member of the AnimalWrongsGroup Team Plasma who actually believes in liberating Pokemon. Worse, he's being manipulated as a puppet figurehead.

* The same goes for fake religions ([[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement none of which will be named here]]): even when a cult's founders are just looking for easy marks to exploit, they'll often promote some of their early converts to the leadership, because nothing sells a religion quite so convincingly as a true believer. The difference is that since these scammers are often LawfulEvil and playing a LongGame, these true believers usually will ''not'' be set up as patsies for anything, and can sometimes linger on and keep the cult going even when the original founders are long gone.

* Similar to the above, in the backstory of the novel ''Beach Music'' by Pat Conroy, during college Shyla became passionately involved in an anti [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam War movement]]. While presumably there are other sincere people that we never actually encounter, both the leader of the movement and Shyla's lover turns out to be moles, a betrayal that is not good at all for a BrokenBird with some schizoid issues.

* Late in ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'', a group of [[EvilGenius Neomegas]] conspire to kill BigBad Phaeton, whose VillainousBreakdown is likely to guarantee losing the war between Humans and Neo Sapiens. They convince [[TheSmartGuy Marsala]] (a [[TokenEnemyMinority Neo Sapien serving in the Terran Exo Fleet]]) to help them by saying they want him to help them capture Phaeton and make peace with humanity. In actuality they just want to take over the Neo Sapien race and are quite willing to turn around and finish wiping out humanity afterward. Only one of the Neomegas, Galba, actually believes in the stated goal. Ironically enough, that saves Galba's life when the coup fails, as an aide loyal to Phaeton hears the other Neomegas order Galba's arrest when they think their plan has succeeded, so the aide and Phaeton both conclude that Galba must have been loyal to Phaeton, and the other Neomegas were tuning on him due to that.

->This was the noblest Roman of them all. All the rest of the conspirators acted out of jealousy of great Caesar. Only he acted from honesty and for the general good.

** In ''Discworld/SmallGods'', the "great god" Om is stunned to realize that despite having a [[CorruptChurch theocratic]], [[TheFundamentalist fundamentalist]] church devoted to him and a nation of millions named after him, nobody actually ''believes'' in him. (Again, this in a world where GodsNeedPrayerBadly.) People believe in the Church, sure, and have feelings about Om such as hope and fear, but the one one who actually believes in Om is Brutha, who ranks so low in the Church hierarchy that he's barely even a part of it.

** And we later encounter another character in the Military Police who declares that his goal is to work his way up the chain, purge the now notoriously corrupt Military Police of corruption and turn it back into a force humanity can be proud of. His fellow new recruits mock him for it. When he sees some of his superiors selling arms to the black market, he tries to stop this, it goes about as well as you'd expect.

* While he's not the only true believer, the cult leader in the ''WesternAnimation/ChipAndDaleRescueRangers'' episode "The Cola Cult" was certainly the only one in the cult's priesthood who genuinely believed his religious order was intended to enlighten its various adherents. He's genuinely surprised and dismayed to discover that the rest of his colleagues have been stashing the worldly possessions new converts surrendered to the cult in a kind of treasury, and are exploiting its followers. He also does what he can to help the Rangers escape and overthrow the priesthood, and is implied to be willing to try implementing their suggestion at the end that the cult's former laity continue to meet as friends (and maybe set up a social club) rather than as cultists.

* The same goes for fake religions ([[RuleOfCautiousEditing none of which will be named here]]): even when a cult's founders are just looking for easy marks to exploit, they'll often promote some of their early converts to the leadership, because nothing sells a religion quite so convincingly as a true believer. The difference is that since they're often playing a LongGame, these true believers can sometimes linger on even when the original founders are gone.

[[folder: Theatre ]]

* As seen in the quote on top, this is the most common interpretation of Brutus in Shakespeare's play ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar''. All the other conspirators who convinced Brutus to join them by decrying Caesar gaining the power of a king mostly just wanted that same power themselves. Brutus on the other hand was horrified by the thought of a king taking over the Roman Republic.

Contrast NotInThisForYourRevolution, which may come from a single non believer with pragmatic motives among a group of believers. See also TookTheBadFilmSeriously, which is about the one actor in a bad movie who doesn't realize it's bad. Compare FlockOfWolves.

* Common in RealLife fraudulent charities that exist purely to con softhearted donors out of their money. Con artists who set them up will often recruit at least one person who doesn't know it's a scam. These people can be great at collecting donations, as they truly believe those donations will help people, and people who wouldn't otherwise donate can sometimes be convinced to do so simply due to the sincerity of these believers. The con artists also frequently attempt to use these believers as the FallGuy, ensuring that all of the "charity's" paperwork incriminates the true believer and not them.

[[folder: Film ]]

* In ''Disney/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'', Milo is the only character who thinks the expedition's goal is to find Atlantis to advance science, it turns out the entire expedition is OnlyInItForTheMoney.

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* Common in RealLife fraudulent charities that exist purely to con softhearted donors out of their money. Con artists who set them up will often recruit at least one person who doesn't know it's a scam. These people can be great at collecting donations, as they truly believe those donations will help people, and people who wouldn't otherwise donate can sometimes be convinced to do so simply due to the sincerity of these believers. The con artists also frequently attempt to use these believers as the FallGuy, ensuring that all of the "charity's" paperwork incriminates the true believer and not them.

-->--'''Mark Antony''' on Brutus, ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar''

So, you have a group of people - whether it be a group of friends, a military, government system, a church, or something else - that are supposedly all united by a common belief, cause, or goal. It's been loudly proclaimed, everyone knows who they are and what they stand for...

* In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbean - At World's End'', when Captain Jack learns that yet another of his rescuers had an ulterior motive, he calls for a show of hands by anyone who'd come to save him just because they missed him. Only a few people raise their hands, and in the trailer only the ''monkey'' does.